How Green Was My Bankruptcy? “Roadmap for Solar Energy Development on Public Lands” Edition

Even if it made sense economically to pave the desert with solar panels, the whole purpose of the green movement, even more than “saving humanity” is “saving the ENVIRONMENT” so this scheme only makes sense to the innumerate who don’t imagine how vast the area involved is. But don’t worry, the lawsuits will fly and nothing will be built.

Willhelm says:
July 26, 2012 at 6:55 pm
They are going to pave over 285,000 acres with solar cells?????
Don’t these projects require an environmental impact statement?
What is this paving over going to do to the local ecosystem? What will all these solar panels do to the local microclimate?
Where do the idiots who dream up these schemes come from?
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EPA environmental impact stuff is waived if it is wind or solar power. This tells you that the “Environment” is not the real issue, does it not?
Remember the EPA has to OK a project BEFORE construction can begin.

Solar power firms in Mojave desert feel glare of tribes and environmentalists
…multibillion-dollar solar power projects under construction across broad swaths of desert on the California-Arizona border.
But at least two developments, including the $1bn, 250-megawatt Genesis Solar near Blythe in the lower Colorado river valley and the Solar Millennium project, are beset with lengthy construction delays, while others are facing legal challenges lodged by environmental groups… specifically involving the flat-tailed horned toad and the desert tortoise…

The EPA and wind vs Bats and Birds link

Variation in bat and bird fatalities at wind energy facilities: assessing the effects of rotor size and tower height ~ Robert M.R. Barclay, E.F. Baerwald, and J.C. Gruver
Abstract: Wind energy is a rapidly growing sector of the alternative energy industry in North America, and larger, more productive turbines are being installed. However, there are concerns regarding bird and bat fatalities at wind turbines. To assess the influence of turbine size on bird and bat fatalities, we analyzed data from North American wind energy facilities. Diameter of the turbine rotor did not influence the rate of bird or bat fatality. The height of the turbine tower had no effect on bird fatalities per turbine, but bat fatalities increased exponentially with tower height. This suggests that migrating bats fly at lower altitudes than nocturnally migrating birds and that newer, larger turbines are reaching that airspace. Minimizing tower height may help minimize bat fatalities. In addition, while replacing older, smaller turbines with fewer larger ones may reduce bird fatalities per megawatt, it may result in increased numbers of bat fatalities.
http://www.bio.ucalgary.ca/contact/faculty/pdf/Barclay07Tur.pdf

In other words everyone acknowledges the fact that bats and birds (esp endangered raptors) are being killed but the EPA gives a hand wave.

…the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) has asked Kern County to “exercise extreme caution” in approving projects in the Tehapachi area, because of potential threats to condors. The “conundrum will force some hard choices about the balance we are willing to strike between obtaining clean energy and preserving wild things,”…
All Americans hope condors will not be sliced and diced by giant Cuisinarts. But most of us are puzzled that so few “environmentalists” and FWS “caretakers” express concern about the countless bald and golden eagles, hawks, falcons, vultures, ducks, geese, bats, and other rare, threatened, endangered and common flying creatures imperiled by turbine blades.
And many of us get downright angry at the selective way endangered species and other wildlife laws are applied – leaving wind turbine operators free to exact their carnage, while harassing and punishing oil companies and citizens….
http://www.masterresource.org/2012/01/killer-energy-wind/

Then there is this: (dubious reporting origin) on Gates experiment with sulfur particulates in New Mexico: link backed up by this Groniad article I can not find anything concrete as to whether or not the project is an actual “GO” but the MSM is not about to report something that might upset the Sheeple unless it is politically advantageous.
It is all about POWER and crippling the west so the internationalists can usher in their ‘Global Goverance’ It was never ever about the environment that was only the vehicle. The evidence of that “Con spir acy Theory” is becoming rather hard to ignore when they are so down right blatant about it. Global Governance 2025: At a Critical Juncture
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. ~ H. L. Mencken

cgh says:
July 26, 2012 at 7:19 pm
…This is pretty much located in Nevada. Gets awful dusty there, doesn’t it? That creates two problems at least.
1. How do you expect to clean them off after a dust storm? Men with brooms? All 285,000 acres of them? You’re going to need every curler in the world for that job. Ah, wait for the occasional rainstorm, you say? Fine, how are you going to clean off the residue from the rain? Abrasion from the subsequent dust storm?
2. Even very light surface scratching, i.e. from the above-mentioned dust storms, reduces solar cell capacity by up to 75 per cent from reflection and refraction effects. In Nevada’s desert? Odds are the entire array will be worthless junk in less than three years.
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You are being optimistic. I live on a dirt road. The dust pitted my windshield in less than a year. I also worked with ceramics the raw materials are dusty and you must clean off your glasses with running water and you can not touch them with a cleaning rag. Ceramic dust (silica clay) will eat your lenses in one cleaning. Using running water does not work well but the lenses will last about six months without becoming unusable.
The first maintenance guy who decides to cut corners and wipe the surface of the panels will trash them.
Quartz (hardness 7) is a very common mineral and found in both the deserts of CA and Nevada.
This whole thing has boondoggle written all over it.

What is most annoying is the hypocrisy of so-called environmentalists who will demand demolition of a humble shack, and would never allow a proper power plant, in these places because of the terrible environmental destruction involved.
Form trumps substance every time, with the carpetbaggers eagerly following in their wake.

All of the arguments here that point out the problems with renewables are of course spot on. The issue that I would like to bring up here involves the mindset of the environmentalist movement that believes in the renewables (and AGW) religion.
On a regular basis, I like to point out the parallels that exist between the environmentalist movement on one hand and non-ecological religious cults like the Branch Davidians on the other. If there is one thing they have in common, it is the arrogant belief that they are somehow morally, intelectually and spiritually superior to the non-believers outside the cult. David Koresh fancied himself a messiah, and messiahs aren’t supposed to be wrong. He and his followers were so sure of themselves, that they were willing to burn to death for it (although not all of them were perhaps willing to do so).
Like Koresh and his followers, the renewable energy and AGW eco-messiahs today are perceived to be blessed with a holiness and intellectual and moral superiority that precludes them from having to listen to any argument outside the faith (no matter how sound and rational it might be) that runs contrary to the sacred renewable energy and AGW doctrines—it just isn’t in the cards. The eco-messiahs are right and that’s the end of it. Case closed.
Some have argued that renewables and the AGW theory are just the eco-messiahs’ pretext for the radical transformation of America’s culture and capitalist economy in line with their evironmental pseudo- or quasi-religious doctrine. Such a transformation would take us back to the Middle Ages (or before). This could very well be true. At any rate, their arrogance and closed mindset leaves this rational thinking person viewing them as the David Koreshes of their movement. And that’s not good.
I fear for the day when their heads finally get so big that they begin to explode. There will be a lot of messes to be cleaned up all over the country. Yuck.

Besides . . . . Trees are the cheapest and most efficient “Solar Collectors” out there! This coming from a little girl who sent big bucks in to by that “Solar Coths Dryer”!

Gail Combs says:
July 27, 2012 at 6:25 am
Then there is this: (dubious reporting origin) on Gates experiment with sulfur particulates in New Mexico: link backed up by this Groniad article…
Gail, I think Sodahead may have added 2+2 and come up with 5.

Two Harvard professors said Tuesday they were developing a proposal for what would be a first-of-its-kind field experiment to test the risks and effectiveness of a geoengineering technology for intervening in the earth’s climate.
The experiment, which would be conducted from a balloon launched from a NASA facility in New Mexico, would involve putting “micro” amounts of sulfate particles into the air with the goal of learning how they combine with water vapor and affect atmospheric ozone.

The Gates connection: “Dr. Keith, who is studying other geoengineering technologies including those that would remove carbon dioxide directly from the air, is among several scientists who have received more than $4 million for such research from Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft.”
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/trial-balloon-a-tiny-geoengineering-experiment/

So glad many have already jumped on the need for — and apparent lack of — environmental impact studies as required under NEPA. However, if memory serves correctly, a NEPA review is tied to specific projects, not such things as land “set asides.” It would be an interesting exercise to see if anyone could get a judicial review of NEPA’s requirements for federal land restrictions for particular uses (regardless of the intended purpose).

Comparing a conventional plant’s capacity with that of a solar PV field is comparing apples and oranges. That 40,000 MW figure is during the noon hour. Since solar irradiation in those deserts probably averages 7 “suns”per day (summertime), the output of the solar field will be (roughly) 40,000 times 7 or 280,000 MWhrs per day. However, a nuclear plant operates usually above 90% capacity. 40,000 MWs of nuclear power (roughly 25 reactors of current generation types)
typically produces 40,000 X 24 X .90, or 864,000 MWhrs per day. The cost of reactors vary, but they also typically last 60 years or more. A solar thin film filed probably 20 years at most and is reduced to roughly 80% output by then. Costs vary but last week a European country signed to build 2 reactors for a total of $10 billion.
Realize that “capacity” can be very misleading. A solar array can be visualized as operating at
peak power around 7 hours per day, or at a 30% capacity in normal terms.
Solar power is uncontrollable power and pollutes a grid. It requires backup, MW for MW by
controllable generation capacity. Thus , regardless of how much, one can never shutter a single conventional plant – they must remain operational, with all the costs that entails, The only real savings one realizes is in the fuel that they don’t use because of the solar power. But fuel in a nuclear plant, for example, only accounts for around 10% of its total operating costs. Economically, solar makes no sense. Environmentally, a recent reading of 30 studies from universities, govts and private sources as to the emissions produced by each power source,
found solar PV generating twice as much as nuclear per GWhr of power produced, and nearly half as much as natural gas. Nuclear plants have the lowest operating costs of all types, becoming cheaper than coal in 1999 and now 30% cheaper. Generation 4 plants, (fast reactors) can burn our nuclear “wastes.” They are inherently safe (can never experience a meltdown)
and calculation show that there is enough energy remaining in our nuclear wastes to provide all of the energy this country needs for the next 1000 years. France is replacing all their reactors over the next 34 years, and half will be fast reactors, generation 4.

I’m from Portugal and the criminal actions of past and present governments about renewal energy (we are ‘ahead’ of the others countries of EU following directives from Bruxels), transformed us in PIGS. And we pay high, very high for electricity.

As the new unit of climate change is the “Manhattan”. , I am afraid I cannot grasp this “million homes” unit. Could one of you translate the “7 million homes” into “Manhattans” for me.
Yours, in eager anticipation…